Abigail was born in 1968 in west London,
the second child of Neville and Julia Cruttenden.

Her first TV job was Elizabeth Alone, aged 12, but her big break came at 14 in Jack Rosenthal's
P'Tang Yang Kipperbang, which brought her an agent and more TV and theatre work, including parts in
Poirot and Van der Valk.

In 1996 she filmed the first of seven
episodes in the Sharpe series, playing Jane Gibbon who eventually
became Sharpe's wife. In real life she married Sean Bean (Sharpe) in
November 1997. She gave birth to their daughter in one year later.
Unfortunately the marriage was not to last and they divorced in 2000.